Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power

[Redaktion]

Lenovo refuses to offer its X1 models with AMD CPUs - perhaps there is an exclusive contract with Intel. The next best model with the AMD Ryzen 6000 is the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3. Even though it is positioned below the X1 Carbon in Lenovo's lineup, it is better in many ways.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T14s-G3-AMD-laptop-review-Quiet-and-efficient-workhorse-with-Ryzen-power.682906.0.html

[Gobrel]

Why is the memory bandwith so low?

[LL]

1800 euro and not even a 1Tb SSD...

[K Souvenir]

I pay grand total 2000$ Canadian dollar in November 2022 for 2TB NVME and others max out specs, is the closest X64 competitor to the Apple Macbook Air M2 in price performance ratio, you will not regret it, is really that good this ThinkPad.

[Sinocelt]

The 6850U? Now? Does it mean we'll have to wait one year for a 7040U version?

[kuro68k]

I've been waiting for Lenovo to make a good Ryzen workstation with USB4/TB and a couple of NVMe slots. Some RAM sockets would be nice too.

I think I'll have to wait for the next generation. For some reason all their current ones just don't offer the features I need (more storage, 64GB RAM). Port selection is quite weak too, and USB PD charging is poor (no 65W support it seems).

[NikoB]

Why is the memory bandwith so low?

AMD mem controllers lose from 1.5 to 2 times by throughput to Intel mem controllers in laptop series.

But bad news - In Intel found a wild jamb in the built-in 2.5Gb/s Ethernet ports - they are hardware buggy in Alder Lake H(and desktop series). And even for Raptor Lake, so it's simply impossible to buy current boards and laptops with them in the first batch without this bug. No stable 2.5Gbps cable network. This is the verdict if this bug is too frequent in batches of laptops. Manufacturers will urgently need to solder third-party 2.5Gbps Ethernet controllers to fix the problem and recall the first batches of laptops with Raptor Lake.

[NikoB]

A business series without a 5Gb/s network controller in 2023 is already nonsense and obviously a fig solution. Without such a controller, you cannot connect at full speed to an office or home NAS. In theory, 5Gb/s RJ45 controllers should have been in even the cheapest laptops for 5 years already, as well as usb 3.0+ ports...

[RobertJasiek]

"bad news - In Intel found a wild jamb in the built-in 2.5Gb/s Ethernet ports - they are hardware buggy in Alder Lake H(and desktop series). And even for Raptor Lake, so it's simply impossible to buy current boards and laptops with them in the first batch without this bug. No stable 2.5Gbps cable network"

Can you please provide more information or links?

[NikoB]

Intel i225-V «Foxville»:
videocardz.com/newz/intel-i225-foxville-2-5gbe-nics-face-inter-packet-gap-issue

Intel i226-V/Raptor Lake:
videocardz.com/newz/intel-i225-foxville-2-5gbe-nics-face-inter-packet-gap-issue

community.intel.com/t5/Ethernet-Products/Intel-R-Ethernet-Contoller-I226-V-connection-drop/m-p/1439558

microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/ethernet-and-wifi-adapter-freeze/a48072bd-f57e-462c-8c6b-c8b2b44cbe21

reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/zpgtya/z790_hero_mb_intelr_ethernet_controller_i226v/
reddit.com/r/intel/comments/zpgy7j/i226v_ethernet_controller_has_the_exact_same/
reddit.com/r/intel/comments/z2uw26/i226v_keeps_disconnecting/
reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/104v7z5/rog_strix_z790f_gaming_wifi_nic_i226_disconnects/
reddit.com/r/intel/comments/zw20e5/intel_i226v_is_utter_garbage/

[Indiana]

Does it say anywhere the exact dimensions of the image on the display? Didn't see it in psref.

[engineer]

A business series without a 5Gb/s network controller in 2023 is already nonsense and obviously a fig solution. Without such a controller, you cannot connect at full speed to an office or home NAS. In theory, 5Gb/s RJ45 controllers should have been in even the cheapest laptops for 5 years already, as well as usb 3.0+ ports...

Completely nonsense. 5Gb controller costs much more than 2,5Gb controller, same goes for switches and the most important, cabling. You can run 2,5Gb without issues on Cat5e for reasonable distances, like your home. 5Gb is not going to work. High bandwidth may be nice for high definition videos, but even then, you are likely to use local storage, fibre channel or something exotic, not ethernet. 1Gbe is more than adequate for loading Excel spreadsheets, word-documents and cad-files!

High speed controllers and associated switches also use more energy than one GbE devices. And I can tell you, most home-NAS devices still have only one GbE port(s). If you want 2,5GbE, it's going to be more advanced and expensove device, not basic home-NAS. And once again there are good reasons: cost, cabling requirements and no real need.

T14s is perfectly capable laptop with 1 GbE port, and there's no need for 2,5 GbE in business laptop, nor there's need for one in engineering workstation.

[NikoB]

Completely nonsense. 5Gb controller costs much more than 2,5Gb controller, same goes for switches and the most important, cabling. You can run 2,5Gb without issues on Cat5e for reasonable distances, like your home. 5Gb is not going to work. High bandwidth may be nice for high definition videos, but even then, you are likely to use local storage, fibre channel or something exotic, not ethernet. 1Gbe is more than adequate for loading Excel spreadsheets, word-documents and cad-files!

High speed controllers and associated switches also use more energy than one GbE devices. And I can tell you, most home-NAS devices still have only one GbE port(s). If you want 2,5GbE, it's going to be more advanced and expensove device, not basic home-NAS. And once again there are good reasons: cost, cabling requirements and no real need.

You write complete nonsense. Many people already have a NAS at home, where they store photos / videos / movies / music /archives / large backups SSDs and etc. in RAID mode. These are NAS placed as far as possible from the residential area, because modern capacious HDDs are very noisy (many platters/7200rpm). The minimum link speed for them is already needed at 5Gbps, because in RAID it has long surpassed 2.5Gbps and even single HDDs are already close to the 2.5Gbps limit.

Therefore, 2.5Gbps was outdated initially, not yet appearing. We need an analogue of USB3.0 over the network, only at a distance of up to 100m at home. As well as the optical link HDMI2.1/DP2.0/eGPU pci-e 4.0 x16 has been needed for a long time and for many years, because copper cables have not been enough for all this for a long time.

It is clear that it is time to switch to optics links for all.

Monitors, TVs, NAS, especially eGPUs, because they are very noisy and have nothing to do in the living room - their place is in a subdued utility room.

Need one powerful optical link for 1Tbps+ from PC/laptops, at least. Already yesterday...

[buscon]

hi,

I got two T14s G3, both have the same specs but with two different cpus, one with i7 1260p, one with AMD 7 6850U.

I was expecting to like AMD better, but so far I was disappointed by the results. I run some informal tests:

hi,

I got the same laptop, a T14s G3, with the same specs but with two different cpus, one with i7 1260p, one with AMD 7 6850U.

I was expecting to like AMD better, but so far I was disappointed by the results. I run some informal tests:

• I am running Ableton Live on both of them with the same project. The i7 uses about 60% of the CPU, while AMD uses about 80%. All the settings are the same, same sound card.
• I run a 4k video to test battery life. Again, the i7 is better than the AMD. I run the 4k video on linux (both machines with same Linux, same configuration), again i7 is better than AMD. With better I mean that the battery get used less in the same time, i.e. after two hours of video playing, the battery of the i7 was at 70%, the one of AMD was at 55%.

I did not run other tests (suggestions are welcome), but based on different reviews, and especially the reviews of Notebookcheck, AMD should have performed better and save more battery.
Any possible explanation?

[NikoB]

Lenovo officially claim about better battery time with Zen3+ in Legion 7 series vs Alder Lake H. +25-30%. With same hardware and battery, but Lenovo not tested it with 4k video, only with fhd video. AMD SoC load igpu with hardware playback of 4k video on YouTube is about 2-2.5 times higher according to my observations. Not surprisingly, the consumption is greater. But in normal tasks, AMD wins in battery life and the speed of the laptop at the same TDP is much higher. Miracles don't happen. The SoC with the best process technology outperforms the SoC with the worst.